


Through A Glass, Darkly

by Wojelah



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-16
Updated: 2007-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:24:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wojelah/pseuds/Wojelah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wasn't supposed to have seen that. That's what the Doctor had said, anyway. Something about time scoops and bubbles and quantum that McKay's better equipped to understand, but which all boils down to John having watched Gallifrey burn, there-but-not-there, no more than a ghost, caught on the edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through A Glass, Darkly

Ever since Afghanistan, John's pretty much thought of himself as someone with little left to lose. It's not the most accurate way of putting it - he'll fight like hell to keep from losing the people he considers his, and for a particular few there's nothing he wouldn't give - but usually John likes to leave as much unsaid as he can. Right now, though, he kind of wishes he came with his own interpreter, because it seems a pretty feeble excuse for turning down the metaphorical carrot being dangled in front of his nose. More to the point, it's not much of an explanation when you're giving it to someone who's seen his whole planet burn. The same someone who's parked on the northwest pier, leaning against a faded blue shed, looking at steadily, an eyebrow raised in inquiry.

John wasn't supposed to have seen that. That's what the Doctor had said, anyway. Something about time scoops and bubbles and quantum that McKay's better equipped to understand, but which all boils down to John having watched Gallifrey burn, there-but-not-there, no more than a ghost, caught on the edges. One minute he'd been with his team, ZPM-hunting on MXP-936; then he'd been swept up by a wall of something he hadn't seen coming, and the sky went purple, then orange, then black. When his vision cleared, he'd been standing on a battlefield, and he still didn't have names for the images seared into his memory. John's seen more than most people. He didn't want to see that. Looking at the man in the trenchcoat still waiting patiently for an answer, he realizes, with an ache he only half-understands, that it might be a good thing he did.

He'd looked down, and there'd been a woman at his feet, blonde and slim and startlingly like Elizabeth in the fine-boned, imperious lines of her face. It had been like looking at Elizabeth, if Elizabeth had been bleeding out in front of him in a pool of orangey-red, and he'd tried - he'd tried - to help. He'd stripped his shirt, had torn it for a tourniquet, had wrapped it around her over and over and over, swearing in desperation as his hands passed through her like he was made of mist. He'd knelt, next to her, as the light left her eyes, watching her go.

Then the sky had changed again, a bright white light that left him dazzled and blinking in an amber-green room across a bizarre-looking console from a man who'd introduced himself as the Doctor and said, over John's angry demands, that no medicine he had could help that woman now. If there was something John didn't regret in Afghanistan, it was the fact he'd gone back, which was why he'd sworn at the Doctor and flung himself at the doors. They'd opened, and he'd been staring into a supernova, which was when he'd realized that even the fragile rules that established something like normal in Pegasus had apparently gone AWOL for the day.

The Doctor had come to stand by his shoulder, looking out at the swirling, cosmic mass, and explained, quietly, about ripples in time and the fact that they'd be on their way to Atlantis shortly and the bizarre aggregation of circumstances that had put John in an unbreakable bubble on the edge of a war just when the Doctor had detected a disturbance in the Vortex. Really, he was a lot like Rodney, rattling off the explanation without pause for breath, and had much invoked the same coping mechanism, which was to nod and smile and resign himself to the fact that the bizarre liked to follow him home, and this was just another example.

Ever since Afghanistan, John's pretty much thought of himself as someone with little left to lose. It's not the most accurate way of putting it - he'll fight like hell to keep from losing the people he considers his, and for a particular few there's nothing he wouldn't give - but usually John likes to leave as much unsaid as he can. Right now, though, he kind of wishes he came with his own interpreter, because it seems a pretty feeble excuse for turning down the metaphorical carrot being dangled in front of his nose. More to the point, it's not much of an explanation when you're giving it to someone who's seen his whole planet burn. The same someone who's parked on the northwest pier, leaning against a faded blue shed, looking at steadily, an eyebrow raised in inquiry.

John wasn't supposed to have seen that. That's what the Doctor had said, anyway. Something about time scoops and bubbles and quantum that McKay's better equipped to understand, but which all boils down to John having watched Gallifrey burn, there-but-not-there, no more than a ghost, caught on the edges. One minute he'd been with his team, ZPM-hunting on MXP-936; then he'd been swept up by a wall of something he hadn't seen coming, and the sky went purple, then orange, then black. When his vision cleared, he'd been standing on a battlefield, and he still didn't have names for the images seared into his memory. John's seen more than most people. He didn't want to see that. Looking at the man in the trenchcoat still waiting patiently for an answer, he realizes, with an ache he only half-understands, that it might be a good thing he did.

He'd looked down, and there'd been a woman at his feet, blonde and slim and startlingly like Elizabeth in the fine-boned, imperious lines of her face. It had been like looking at Elizabeth, if Elizabeth had been bleeding out in front of him in a pool of orangey-red, and he'd tried - he'd tried - to help. He'd stripped his shirt, had torn it for a tourniquet, had wrapped it around her over and over and over, swearing in desperation as his hands passed through her like he was made of mist. He'd knelt, next to her, as the light left her eyes, watching her go.

Then the sky had changed again, a bright white light that left him dazzled and blinking in an amber-green room across a bizarre-looking console from a man who'd introduced himself as the Doctor and said, over John's angry demands, that no medicine he had could help that woman now. If there was something John didn't regret in Afghanistan, it was the fact he'd gone back, which was why he'd sworn at the Doctor and flung himself at the doors. They'd opened, and he'd been staring into a supernova, which was when he'd realized that even the fragile rules that established something like normal in Pegasus had apparently gone AWOL for the day.

The Doctor had come to stand by his shoulder, looking out at the swirling, cosmic mass, and explained, quietly, about ripples in time and the fact that they'd be on their way to Atlantis shortly and the bizarre aggregation of circumstances that had put John in an unbreakable bubble on the edge of a war just when the Doctor had detected a disturbance in the Vortex. Really, he was a lot like Rodney, rattling off the explanation without pause for breath, and had much invoked the same coping mechanism, which was to nod and smile and resign himself to the fact that the bizarre liked to follow him home, and this was just another example.


End file.
